While expectations are already high for the upcoming Marvel's Wolverine game, Insomniac has yet to offer concrete details on the title. Fans have long speculated on what to expect since the developer first teased Marvel's Wolverine back in 2021. Of course, Wolverine is no stranger to video games as the character has been part of numerous titles over the years. Among the list, Raven Software's X-Men Origins: Wolverine game might be the most ambitious appearance to date. Although it's over a decade old, the 2009 game serves as a viable reference point for Insomniac to build on for its own Wolverine game.
Wolverine has maintained immense popularity throughout the decades across multiple mediums and a large part of it comes down to distinct traits like the adamantium claws, gruff attitude, and his iconic healing factor. The X-Men Origins: Wolverine game thrives in emulating some of these character traits well, particularly his regeneration power. Here, whenever the character suffers enough damage players would get a glimpse of Wolverine's exposed adamantium skeleton before the skin starts to reform. The animation only lasts a few seconds, though a modernized version of Wolverine's regeneration would help visualize an important part of the character. X-Men Origins: Wolverine game's regeneration system could act as the ideal damage indicator.
How X-Men Origins: Wolverine Depicted Marvel's Character
Another aspect that worked well for the 2009 title is its bloody and gruesome combat. Wolverine's brutal fighting style plays an important part in the character's depiction and X-Men Origins: Wolverine shows how immersive the experience can be in a gaming environment. For Insomniac, modern graphics open a lot of possibilities if X-Men Origins: Wolverine is any indication. Fortunately for fans, it appears that Insomniac's Wolverine may reportedly get an M rating, with one report claiming that it could even include dismemberment. It's a change of direction for Insomniac, should it be the case, particularly after its Spider-Man series of games. Still, it's one that may work in the studio's favor.
In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, navigating as the iconic character is also interesting considering how Wolverine's enhanced senses are incorporated as a means of discovering areas and items of interest within an environment. It's a subtle way of adding the game mechanic that players have come to be familiar with while staying true to the Wolverine character. But apart from his enhanced senses, gruesome combat animations, and healing factor, X-Men Origins: Wolverine also introduced a number of characters that weren't part of the original story, such as Sentinels, Leviathan, and Wendigo.
Insomniac also has a similar opportunity to bring in lesser-known or previously unseen characters from the X-Men lore to Marvel's Wolverine. After all, it's the perfect stage to introduce X-Men-related stories and characters. Adding a bigger variety of characters would also help avoid one of X-Men Origins: Wolverine's bigger complaints, where boss fights tend to get repetitive after some time. The novelty of fighting as Wolverine will only go so far unless the game continues to offer interesting villains and side quest characters. If the boss fights in Marvel's Spider-Man are anything to go by, Insomniac knows how to keep things fresh.
As of now, it's unclear how Insomniac's next Marvel project will turn out. Its Spider-Man series has already excited fan prospects of Logan getting the modern big-scale video game treatment. It will be interesting to see how Insomniac will tackle a more mature setting with Marvel's Wolverine, though X-Men Origins: Wolverine gives prospective players a viable reference point on what the next playable Wolverine could look like. Between this and Marvel's Spider-Man 2, 2023 may be a big year for Insomniac Games.
Marvel's Wolverine is in development for PS5.